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Toronto Blue Jays outfielder Jesus Sanchez has been hitting the ball well, and with Janson Junk on the mound for the Miami Marlins, the matchup should favor the slugger to keep his bat hot tonight.

Read on to see why in my Marlins vs. Blue Jays predictions and MLB picks on Monday, May 25. 

Marlins vs Blue Jays predictions

Marlins vs Blue Jays best bet: Jesus Sanchez Over 0.5 hits (-145)

Toronto Blue Jays outfielder Jesus Sanchez has been red-hot, eclipsing his hits total in 10 of his last 12 games, posting a .433 batting average in this stretch.

With a little extra motivation, taking on a Miami Marlins team that traded him last season, I expect him to keep his hot streak alive, especially with Janson Junk on the mound. 

Junk has struggled mightily over his last three starts, giving up 19 runs on 25 hits. This can be chalked up to a pedestrian fastball that ranks in the 45th percentile in velocity, as well as a putrid 18.7% whiff rate that ranks in the ninth percentile.

The righty regularly gets squared up, and Sanchez is batting just under .300 against right-handers.

COVERS INTEL: Sanchez ranks in the 92nd percentile in expected batting average this season.

Marlins vs Blue Jays same-game parlay (SGP)

Trey Yesavage has gone Over tonight’s 5.5 strikeout total in four straight starts, averaging 6.5 per. I expect him to do it again against a team with a 33% strikeout rate against the splitter, Yesavage’s put-away pitch.  

Overall, the Jays will win by multiple runs. There’s a lot of juice in the Jays’ moneyline, but the run line still has value as they’ve covered it in four of their last five victories.

Additionally, the pitching matchup should allow Toronto to keep Miami at bay while putting up offense against Junk.

Marlins vs Blue Jays SGP

• Jesus Sanchez Over 0.5 hits
• Trey Yesavage Over 5.5 strikeouts
• Blue Jays -1.5

Marlins vs Blue Jays home run pick: Daulton Varsho (+450)

The Jays offense has picked up recently, but we’re still waiting on consistent power, so we’ll make this a half-unit wager. 

Junk has surrendered six home runs over his last four starts and gives up fairly hard contact to lefties, who have 17 extra-base hits off him for a .888 opponents' OPS. 

The lefty in the Jays lineup I’m banking on to homer tonight is Daulton Varsho, who owns a 59% hard-hit rate against the four-seamer, which Junk throws most often to lefties.

Marlins vs Blue Jays odds

• Moneyline: Miami +140 | Toronto -160
• Run line: Miami +1.5 (-150) | Toronto -1.5 (+130)
• Over/Under: Over 7.5 (-110) | Under 7.5 (-110)

Marlins vs Blue Jays trend

The Toronto Blue Jays have covered the 1st Five Innings (F5) Run Line in 9 of their last 10 games (+7.90 Units / 68% ROI). Find more MLB betting trends for Marlins vs. Blue Jays.

How to watch Marlins vs Blue Jays and game info

Marlins vs Blue Jays latest injuries

Marlins vs Blue Jays weather

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With mirroring campaigns on either side of the spectrum, the Dodgers and Rockies meet at Dodger Stadium on Memorial Day. The home side aims to carry on the momentum from an outstanding road trip that saw them win seven of nine, taking two of three from the Brewers and Padres, and sweeping the Angels.

While as a team the Dodgers thrived away from home, Emmet Sheehan didn’t have the best of times in his game, even if the Dodgers ended up beating San Diego 5-4. All four of the Padres’ runs came against Sheehan courtesy of a couple of long balls as their lineup made him grind, though it was his shortest outing since his 2026 debut, when Sheehan failed to complete four innings against the Diamondbacks.

Sheehan will face one of the more harmless offenses away from home in the big leagues, a nice segue to touch on the stark difference between what the Dodgers’ lineup has produced away from Dodger Stadium and at home. As the visiting club, the Dodgers have a 128 wRC+, while 28 of the other 30 teams sit at 115 or below. Playing in front of their fans, the Dodgers rank a respectable but unimpressive 11th in wRC+ (107).

Facing the Rockies, the Dodgers have the ideal opponent to juice those home stats—Tyler Gordon will be the starter for Colorado, having allowed a two-homer game to Dalton Rushing the last time he faced the NL West leaders and reigning champs.

Monday’s game info

• Teams: Dodgers vs. Rockies
• Ballpark: Dodger Stadium, Los Angeles
• Start time: 6:10 p.m. PT
• TV: SportsNet LA
• Radio: AM 570 (English), KTNQ 1020 AM (Spanish)

It’s been an unfortunate yet somewhat predictable start to Nick Lodolo’s 2026 season since he missed over a month while dealing with blister issues. It forced him to tweak the way he approaches batters, looking at times to avoid throwing his slider too much and risking a recurrence of the problem. He also, obviously, missed a lot of time he’d otherwise have been building up to his best at the start of what was viewed as a crucial season for him, especially with Hunter Greene on the sidelines for months.

So far, he’s yielded 12 earned runs in just 15 IP across a trio of starts, though at times in his start on May 18th against the Phillies he looked a bit more like his old self. Still, he’s been plagued with the exact same problem as the entirety of the Cincinnati Reds pitching staff as a whole this year, as he’s walked an uncharacteristic 9 batters against just 11 Ks in that time.

For the record, he was fanning hitters at a 9.0 K/9 just last year with a stellar 1.8 BB/9. The Reds, quite frankly. aren’t going to go anywhere in 2026 if he can’t rediscover something close to that form.

He’ll get another shot to find it on Monday in New York as the Reds begin a series against the sputtering New York Mets. The Reds will do so with a rested staff, too, having had Thursday, Friday, and Sunday off thanks to scheduling and some weather postponements.

The Mets, meanwhile, will roll out burgeoning ace Nolan McLean, who has looked mostly brilliant through his first 58.0 IP of the season.

First pitch in the series opener is set for 4:10 PM ET.

Here’s how the Reds will line up for the opener, with Blake Dunn continuing to get run at leadoff and in CF, Eugenio Suarez in the lineup at DH, and hopefully a big pile of runs baked into it:

After a Sunday rainout in Cincinnati, the St. Louis Cardinals will battle the Milwaukee Brewers Monday afternoon. It would be tempting to say that the Cardinals are fighting the Brewers for first place in the NL Central, but this is supposed to just be a development year, so I won’t say what all of us are thinking. The Sunday rainout allowed St. Louis to reset their rotation which is what they hoped to achieve with the callup of Brycen Mautz on Sunday. It appears the the Cardinals will start Matthew Liberatore Monday against the Brewers as they’ll put Jacob Misiorowski on the mound. First pitch scheduled for 1:10pm in American Family Field.

First Pitch (CT):1:10 PM
TV: Twins.TV
Radio: TIBN/830 WCCO/102.9 The Wolf /Audacy App
Know Yo’ Foe: South Side Sox

Fresh off a sweep of one set of Sox, the Twins will look to do the same to a White pair this time around. Zebby Matthews is on the mound for the Twins, staying in the rotation after a couple solid outings, while Simeon Woods Richardson has been demoted to long relief for the time being.

They’ll be facing lefty Anthony Kay, who is looking strong after spending two years playing in Japan. Kay’s overall season numbers aren’t dazzling, but he’s been very strong in the month of May with 2.11 ERA in 21.1 innings and four starts. Guys are still getting on base, he’s allowed eight walks and four hit batters this month, so it’ll be up to the middle of the lineup to make sure those guys are coming home this time around.

Also of note: the White Sox currently hold the second AL Wild Card spot while the Twins hold the third. It’s too early in the season for that to particularly matter, but the Twins will likely hold the second spot if they win this series. The White Sox aren’t elite by any stretch, but they are a talented group with a lot of young talent that is moving in the right direction. Even if they don’t maintain a hold on playoff position, they have a young core and a clear path forward, more than they’ve been able to say in years.

I’m spending Memorial Day with some family so I won’t be around the comments, but I’ll see you post-game where Austin Martin will be coming off the first multi homer game of his career (if this comes true, I’ll include the lottery numbers in the recap as well).

Lineups

After an unexpected couple of weeks’ hiatus, I wanted to get back to looking at one promising Blue Jays prospect each week. Today, the Blue Jays’ intriguing 12th round selection in last year’s draft, who’s nearly matching the performance of his much more highly touted teammate, first rounder Jojo Parker.

Blaine Bullard was considered a top 3-5 round talent in the 2025 draft class, ranked #151 by Baseball America. His commitment to Texas A&M was regarded as pretty firm, though, and teams weren’t willing to risk taking him with a top 10 round pick and losing a valuable slot bonus. As a result, he slid out of the top 10 rounds entirely and the Jays were able to tab him 352nd overall. They scraped together $1.7m from money saved on Parker’s bonus and from a couple of later picks plus the allowed 5% bonus pool overage, roughly equivalent to the slot value for the 55th overall pick, and dared him to turn it down.

So far, they have to be happy that he couldn’t. Bullard is an elite athlete with easy plus speed. He’s been able to deploy that to steal 18 bags in 19 tries, one of the best success rates among all high volume runners in A ball. He’s also drawn strong reviews for his routes in centre field, and looks like he’ll ultimately be an above average to plus defender there.

The questions in his profile have all been about his future at the plate. He’s a switch hitter, but naturally left handed, and he’s far more advanced from that side of the plate. The scouting consensus was that he had the potential to be an average or somewhat better pure hitter, although he was seen as raw. He also faced questions about his ultimate power potential, with a lanky build and whippy swing that’s geared to spray grounders and line drives more than elevate for power.

So far, things have looked a little different than expected. Bullard has already launched five home runs in 167 PAs, using his wheels to add in eight doubles and a pair of triples. His .184 isolated slugging is well above the Florida State League average and third best among the 10 teenagers who have gotten regular run there. He’s also struck out a fair bit (30% of the time), though, and hasn’t produced many walks (8%, in a league where the median is 12%). It’s an effective overall package, as his .265/.337/.449 line has been 12% better than league average and in the 68th percentile among teenagers in full season ball, but it’s not quite the shape we expected.

Digging in a little, it appears that part of the difference is due to his switch hitting. All but two of his extra base hits have come from the left side, and his 27% and 9% walk and strikeout rates look a little more like it. He’s a more aggressive than average swinger, but his 68.7% in-zone swing rate and 27.4% chase rate suggest decent underlying plate discipline. He’s making contact inside the zone just 78% of the time, which is less than ideal, but not disastrous by any stretch and not necessarily a surprise for such a young player seeing professional pitching for the first time. When he does hit the ball, he’s delivering the low line drives expected, with a 5.5 degree launch angle, but he actually makes his best contact a little higher, with a 13.7 degree angle on hard hit balls. His 85mph average exit velocity and 27% hard hit rate from that side would both be near the bottom of the scale in MLB but they’re not bad for a teenager and suggest that with a little maturation he could get to the 40-grade raw power many scouts projected for him, with enough hard contact pulled for line drives or fly balls to get to all of it in games.

Things are less promising from the right. He’s struck out 11 times in just 24 PA without a walk, and has just 6 hits, two of them doubles. His 80.6mph average exit velocity is pretty dismal, as is his -4.5 degree launch angle. He’s more aggressive from that side, swinging 54% of the time, and he’s whiffing far too much both inside the zone (67.7% contact rate) and outside it (25%). It’s a small sample because Dunedin hasn’t happened to face that much left handed pitching yet, but it’s at least a yellow flag on his ability to switch hit longer term.

The overall picture is of a very talented player experiencing mixed success with an aggressive assignment to start his pro career. Many high schoolers, including for example last year’s 9th overall pick Steele Hall and Bullard’s draft-classmate Tim Piasentin, would start their first full pro season at the complex. Bullard was sent straight to a real league where he’s more than two years younger than his average competition, and has produced. His speed and defence look to be everything advertised, and his power production has exceeded expectations. He also has clear work to do on refining his approach and contact ability, though. That goes for both sides of the plate, and the gap on the right side is big enough to question whether he might ultimately wind up focusing on his natural left handed stroke full time. He remains one of the higher upside players in the system, with the potential to develop into a Lorenzo Cain or Coco Crisp type table setting centre fielder if everything comes together.

The Los Angeles Dodgers (33-20) open a series against the Colorado Rockies (20-34) in a meet of the first- and last-place teams in the NL West. The Dodgers are favored with a -327 moneyline compared to the Colorado Rockies' +259. Scheduled starting pitchers are Tanner Gordon for Colorado, with a 6.59 ERA, and Emmet Sheehan for Los Angeles, with a 4.93 ERA.

How to watch Colorado Rockies vs. Los Angeles Dodgers

• Date: Monday, May 25

• Time: 9:10 p.m. ET / 6:10 p.m. PT

• Where: Dodger Stadium, Los Angeles

• TV Channels: SportsNet LA, Rockies.TV

• Live Stream:ESPN+, MLB.TV | Follow on Yahoo Sports

Team records

• Colorado Rockies: 20-34 (No. 5 in NL West)

• Los Angeles Dodgers: 33-20 (No. 1 in NL West)

Odds

• Spread: Los Angeles Dodgers -1.5

• Moneyline: Los Angeles Dodgers -327 (73.3%) / Colorado Rockies +259 (26.7%)

• Over/Under: 9.0

Starting pitchers

Colorado Rockies: Tanner Gordon (0-0, ERA: 6.59, K: 30, WHIP: 1.50)
Los Angeles Dodgers: Emmet Sheehan (3-1, ERA: 4.93, K: 51, WHIP: 1.27)

Weather: 69°F at first pitch

Ballpark: Capacity: 56,000 | Roof: Open | Surface: Grass

Go Rays!